Erie Elementary geocaching club teaches real-world skills

After school on Fridays, about 25 students, all in second through fifth grades, meet to participate in the international, outdoor treasure-hunting game.

Players, called "geocachers," use GPS-enabled devices to locate hidden "caches," or treasures in and around their communities. More than 4 million people are geocachers, according to the official geocaching website, geocaching.com.

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"I wanted to do this club because it sounded interesting, and I really like to do these kinds of things," said fifth-grader Jennifer Williams, 10, at Friday's club meeting.

On Friday, the horde of students navigated to the cache in Coal Miners Park, a few blocks east of the school. Most used handheld GPS devices and a few used the geocaching app on parent volunteer's cell phones.

Third-grader Jack Ahrens, 8, spotted the cache in a small pill bottle. Inside, students found a log of past geocachers and the date they accessed the cache. Kneeling on the sidewalk, they added "Erie Elementary" to the list.

Jack said he wanted to try the popular game after running into geocachers in Durango. The game seemed fun, he said. His father, John, one of the club's parent volunteers, said he wants his son to have a solid grasp of spatial concepts, and this is a way to do that.

Erie Elementary principal Amanda Sauer started the club this school year, after she and her sons -- Ryan, 10; Thomas, 8; and Jordan, 4 -- got into geocaching, both around Erie and while visiting family in Maryland. The real-world skills -- cardinal directions, latitude, longitude and using GPS technology -- dovetail with Erie Elementary's Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics focus.

Erie Elementary School fourth-grader James Lewis, 9, works to crack a code during a geocaching club meeting in the library Friday
(
Elaine Cromie
)

"We look for things that they can then continue on as life skills," Sauer said.

Last week's adventure took the students near Erie's Red Hawk Elementary, where they found a cache with tiny treasures, including action figures and pins. They added a pink Erie Elementary frog with a code that can be tracked online as the item travels. Ideally, students hope their frog makes it to China (Mandarin is now taught at all Erie elementary and middle schools).

That part was pretty cool, said Avery Hinman, 10. Treasure aside, the fifth-grader said the club helped him learn to identify the four cardinal directions, even without a compass.

"I just remember 'never east soggy waffles,'" he said, using the mnemonic device to point to north, east, south and west.

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